a charleston food blog

La Nortena

La Nortena is the finest taqueria/mexican restaurant in the charleston area. Everything here is basically great though i don’t recommend the whole fried fish. Carnitas are excellent, burritos are good, and the tacos are the best and a great value at $1.25 ea. Also, try the horchata drink to cool you off from the intensly hot fresh salsas served with the tacos. Not much English is spoken here so be patient or learn spanish. Usually no more than 1 other table of gringos in here. Very friendly staff.

Nortena’s sister restaurant with the same namesake on remount rd is a bit different with a mexican butcher/grocery in the same space as the restaurant. Apparently owned and run by the brother of the man who runs the ashley phosphate location, this location feels more authentically mexican with its carniceria. Though the menus are exactly the same, I prefer the Ashley Phosphate spot because the food seems slightly better. Maybe this is owed to the fact that this location is cleaner and better lit and feels more like a restaurant. But for a unique experience, I do recommend the remount location. If you are not hispanic, you will be the only gringo in site.

Glad you found the blog and liked Nortena. We’re just getting this blog off the ground, so it’s good to know people find it useful. If you speak a little spanish, try Los Parados next time you’re in Charleston. It’s on Ashley Phospate, a little closer to 26. Not as gringo friendly as Nortena, but they have more authentic fare like sopes and huaraches (cornmeal cakes grilled with beans and toppings). Parados used to be my favorite mexican restaurant in Charleston, but at some point they stopped using fresh sour cream and started using a mayonaisse-y substance, which kind of put me off. I’m willing to give it another chance though, as they have some esoteric fare.

I love La Nortena! I used to live near there off Dorchester Rd and ate there at least twice a week. I’ve moved out of state, and La Nortena is one of the things I miss most about Charleston. I visited this summer, so I made a special trip to N. Chas just to eat at La Nortena.